Education

Political career

While in pursuit of his law degree, Schmidt served as an assistant to both the former United States Senator Nancy Kassebaum and Senator Chuck Hagel. Once he graduated, he served in a number of public official positions including as an assistant to the state attorney general and special counsel to the Governor.

Senate Sub. for HB 2006 to create incentives for the aviation industry

Attorney General

Controversies

KTRM support

The State Senate Majority Leader in 2008 "approved of the donation of thousands of dollars of Senate Republican Leadership PAC money" to the Kansas Traditional Republican Majority (KTRM), "a small but well-funded group of Republicans who support judicial activism, oppose school choice, support tax increases, and are generally liberal on social issues." [2][3] Additionally, KTRM has often targeted conservative Republicans during heated primary contests, even going so far as to label them as "racists" as they did in August 2008 to former Congressman Jim Ryun and Phill Kline for their association with the Family Research Council Action (FRCA); KTRM had claimed that the group's executive director, Tony Perkins, had "ties to the Ku Klux Klan and other white-supremacist organizations." [4][5]

Tax increases

Though Schmidt advocated during the course of his attorney general campaign that he had protected state taxpayers throughout his state senatorial career, a local newspaper, The Kansas Free Press, revealed that his argument was not entirely accurate. When the state faced a $300 million budget shortfall in 2002, a coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans, Senator Schmidt among them, passed a $252 million tax increase that included "a sales tax increase, an inheritance tax increase, a cigarette tax, and an increased franchise tax for businesses, among other things." [6] State legislators who pushed for the tax increase argued that the decision was made in order to prevent massive cuts to education, social services, highways and law enforcement.

Other roles

Trustee, Eastern Kansas Branch of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society